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The number of people in the US without health insurance has been steadily rising since the official end of the Covid-19 public health emergency was declared in May 2023.
The uninsured rate rose to 8.2% (or roughly 27 million people) in Q1 2024 after falling to a record low of 7.2% in Q2 2023, CDC data shows. That low was largely thanks to the Medicaid continuous enrollment policy that allowed all beneficiaries to keep their coverage until May 2023, according to Daniel Polsky, a health economist and professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
Without the continuous enrollment policy, roughly 25 million people have lost Medicaid coverage, according to data from health policy research firm KFF.
Never fear: The increase in uninsured patients isn’t too concerning just yet, Polsky said.
“It shouldn’t have an impact on the financial well-being of providers [that] want to make sure that everyone who comes into their office gets the care they need,” he said.
However, on an individual basis, more uninsured people could translate to higher levels of medical debt or delayed care, which can have “long-term health consequences later,” he added. And if the number of uninsured patients rises too steeply, that could have an effect on providers, which may have more unpaid medical bills and subsequently turn away patients without insurance.
But that 8.2% figure is still significantly lower than the 10.3% of people in the US who were uninsured before the pandemic, so it’s not quite time for providers to worry, according to Polsky.
Looking ahead. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the number of uninsured people in the US will rise to 8.9% by 2034, mainly due to the end of Covid-era policies that boosted coverage rates.